Ripple Effect: ETDs, Workflows, and Policies One Year After "A Bigger Splash"

NOTE: A revised and updated version of this presentation was given at the 2014 United States Electronic Theses and Dissertations Association annual conference in Orlando FL in September 2014. Since 2008 EIU has been digitizing ETDs and making them available via the library catalog, I-Share (the state of IL consortia catalog), and WorldCat. It was only after ETDs were included in the institutional repository (The Keep) that the majority of faculty became fully aware of how accessible these theses had become. This dawning realization led to important conversations with faculty and other stakeholders about concerns regarding publishing, grant approval, and patents. Following these discussions new embargo policies and workflows were developed. In this presentation, we will provide statistics showing increased access to ETDs due to the repository, and describe changes to EIU embargo policy that were achieved by partnering with EIU faculty and other stakeholders.